


Tangled Sheets

by provocative_envy



Series: unfinished [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-War, Angst, Divination, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Flashbacks, Ghosts, Happy Ending, Humor, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Magical Tattoos, Mystery, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Epilogue Compliant, POV Male Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Runes, Time Travel, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-07 23:09:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8819980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/pseuds/provocative_envy
Summary: Because Pansy Parkinson is standing in front of him, looking like every primly proper Pureblood nightmare Harry’s ever had, and he can’t quite reconcile her presence on his doorstep with the stagnant predictability of the world he usually inhabits.  Cognitive dissonance.  That’s what it is.





	

* * *

 

_June 22, 2003_

_9:30 am_

 

* * *

 

Someone is knocking on Harry’s front door.

He hadn’t been sure, at first. He’s got a hangover that’s making him think a little wistfully of the time he’d literally died, and the thunderous pounding in his head is _loud_. Obnoxious. Painful. His mouth is dryer than a cotton ball, there’s a strange, prickly sort of soreness emanating from between his shoulder blades, and his stomach is rumbling angrily at him despite the greasy wave of nausea puttering around the back of his throat. He doesn’t remember what he’d had to drink the night before.

He doesn’t remember much of _anything_ from the night before.

He groans, burying his face in his pillow before he rolls out of bed. The knocking continues, and he badly wants to punch a hole in the nearest wall. He wonders if Hermione’s decided to stage another intervention. The last one hadn’t ended well, but that hadn’t been _Harry’s_ fault. It had been Malfoy’s. Possibly Kreacher’s. More than likely _not_ Ron’s, although Ron _had_ been the one to encourage Harry to go through with Auror training, so—semantics, really.

Harry stumbles down the stairs.

The knocking becomes increasingly more aggressive.

With an exasperated huff, he flings open the door, instantly recoiling from the harsh beam of sunlight, and then he—

Freezes.

Squints.

Adjusts his glasses.

 _Stares_ .

Because _Pansy Parkinson_ is standing in front of him, looking like every primly proper Pureblood nightmare Harry’s ever had, and he can’t quite reconcile her presence on his doorstep with the stagnant predictability of the world he usually inhabits.

Cognitive dissonance.

That’s what it is.

Because Pansy Parkinson and her glossy pink lips do not _belong_ here. At Grimmauld Place. With Harry. Her diamond earrings that had probably come from a vault and her pleated tennis skirt that she’s probably not playing tennis in and her unimpressed scowl as she gives him a slightly too-long once-over—they’re fundamentally _wrong_. Illogical. Lost.

He hasn’t seen Pansy Parkinson in _years_.

“Um,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. He’d forgotten to put on a shirt, he realizes, only vaguely alarmed. She quirks a neatly manicured blonde brow. He crosses his arms over his chest. “What are you doing—I mean. No, that’s what I mean. Yeah. What are you doing here.”

Parkinson lifts her chin, smoothing her fingers down the strap of her handbag. It’s a nervous habit, Harry’s sure of that, and the thought irks him. He doesn’t really want to _notice things_ about Pansy Parkinson.

“I imagine you know quite well why I’m here,” she replies, accent just as crisp and posh and awful and _patronizing_ as it was when they’d been at school together. “Now, are you going to invite me in, or do we have to have this conversation where your neighbors can see us?”

“My neighbors can’t see us,” he retorts, automatically. “There’s a charm—oh, my _god_ , what the _fuck_ is—”

He cuts himself off, swooping down to grab that morning’s edition of the _Prophet_. His own face, split in a smug, lazy grin, winks up at him from the front page, hair a sweaty, disheveled mess, hands resting suggestively on the button-fly of his jeans. He’s visibly drunk, and the fine print beneath the accompanying headline— _“The Boy Who Lived…for Indecent Exposure!”_ —promises a whole spread of photographic humiliation from pages 6 to 10.

“Is this—did I—did _you_ have something do with this?” he asks, glaring at Parkinson. “Is that what you’re doing here?”

“Yes,” she says simply, before blinking. Snorting. _Smirking_. “Page 8’s a bit of a laugh, if you’re curious. Informative, too. Maybe _Witch Weekly_ will _finally_ put that ridiculous briefs-or-boxers argument to rest.”

Harry grits his teeth, and almost immediately regrets it. His _skull_ hurts, for fuck’s sake. “Go on, then,” he says on an impatient exhale, gesturing behind him. “Come inside.”

 

* * *

 

Pansy Parkinson hovers like a particularly well-dressed ghost in the cobwebbed gloom of his foyer.

“Well?” Harry snaps, fighting the urge to fidget. “What d’you want?”

And that aggravating, condescending _mask_ Parkinson’s had on since he’d opened his front door—it flickers, and it fades, and it dies, revealing something vulnerable and entirely too frightened. Her lower lip trembles, and Harry’s unease begins to mount. Most of a decade ago, Pansy Parkinson had cried, often and easily. Papercuts and melodrama. That’s what he would’ve associated her tantrums with. They’d been— _she’d_ been—inconsequential. Stupid.

Now, though.

 _Now_ .

There’s a _gravity_ to this; to the situation.

To the way her eyes are darting from his hair, to his mouth, to the newspaper he’d tossed on the table—to the way she clutches at the handles of her expensive handbag, pretty pastel pink leather, and steels her spine as if she’s anticipating some kind of _shift_ in the atmosphere. In the earth’s crust.

She’s _scared_ , he thinks again, the realization settling between them like day-old concrete. She’s scared, and he _really_ needs a fucking _drink_.

“ _Accio_ whisky,” he mumbles, flicking his wrist towards the kitchen. A half-empty bottle of Glenfiddich floats towards him, and he snatches it out of the air, pulling the cork free with near-violent precision. “Okay,” he says, taking an audibly long gulp. “Talk.”

Parkinson wrinkles her nose, but otherwise remains silent. She then folds her arms over her lower abdomen. Unfolds them. Clenches her jaw. Presses her lips together. Sniffs, just the once, like she’s _irritated_ she has to explain herself. Blurts out—

“Ask me what day it is.”

Harry coughs into his forearm. “ _What?”_

“Ask me what day it is,” she repeats, a hint of acid in her tone.

“I’m—fucking hell—fine. What _day_ is it, Parkinson?”

Her nostrils flare. “It’s Friday, August 22nd.”

Unbidden, Harry’s gaze flies to the _Daily Prophet_ —and, of course, “Sunday Edition” is printed in enormous block letters in the upper right corner, right next to “22nd of June”—but he had to _check_ , didn’t he? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d lost track of the days. Weeks. Months.

“Is this a _joke?_ ” he demands, voice cracking.

Her eyes sharpen—with clarity, with anger, with _desperation_ , which…makes him a bit nervous—and then she’s bringing her hands to the front of her blouse, yanking at the ivory buttons, exposing what seems to Harry like a fucking _mile_ of smooth bare skin, a delicate white bra embroidered with seed pearls and tiny pink bows and lace, lots and lots of lace, the curves of her breasts and the gleaming gold locket that’s nestled between them and—

His tonsils feel like _sandpaper_ against his throat.

Luckily, she spins around before he can unstick his tongue from the roof of his fucking mouth.

“What…” he trails off, tightening his grip on the neck of the whisky bottle.

Between the wings of her shoulder blades, there’s a tattoo. It’s fresh, skin inflamed a mottled, puffy red around the ink, and it’s—

A rune.

 _Two_ runes.

They’re mirror images of each other. Thin black lines with two equilateral triangles emerging from their sides. Bastardized letter B’s. There’s a starkness to them, a latent sense of power that reminds him of the insidious chill that had permeated the Chamber of Secrets; ancient magic, multiplied and concentrated, a timeless sort of whisper that had echoed and echoed and _pulsed_. Breathed. Come alive, all at once and with very little warning.

And the sight of them—the runes—it causes something hot and sticky and _fierce_ to blossom in the pit of his stomach. Recognition. Déjà vu. A memory, fleeting and fiery. Grainy snapshots of an intricate wooden ceiling, the eerie rustling of a beaded curtain, a plush velvet chaise lounge and a striped violet tablecloth and a lightning-scarred mess of storm clouds swirling around a crystal ball, a tattered deck of tarot cards and a soft, shaking hand encased in his own and _heat_. A stinging ache. Words, foreign and silky.

“What is that?” he manages to croak. He’s not quite sure he wants her to answer him. “What are those, Parkinson?”

She doesn’t turn around. “You don’t…you don’t know?”

He takes another swig of whisky. Swipes the back of his hand across his mouth. Wishes his chest wasn’t so hollow and his head wasn’t so clear. “No. I don’t know.”

“Shit,” she sighs.

And at any other time, it’d be funny, he supposes. _That_ word coming from _her_ mouth. But not now. Not like this. Not when she’s rummaging around in her bag—she hesitates, for just a second, when her fingers brush a small satin envelope—and producing a shiny silver compact, clicking it open and moving to stand behind him, holding the mirror up to his back, to the space between his shoulder blades.

His insides lurch. Spasm. Curl in on themselves.

He knows what he’s going to see before he glances back to look.

A tattoo. Identical to Parkinson’s. Two runes, freshly inked and burgeoning with magic.

“Where did that come from,” he hears himself say, low and hoarse and _gravelly_. “Parkinson. _Parkinson._ What did you—how did you—where did that _come_ from?”

She shuts the compact. Avoids his eyes. She’s gone paler than pale—like all the blood in her face has rushed elsewhere. Fled the scene. “There’s more,” she tells him, doing up the buttons on her blouse with slow, jerky, _methodical_ movements. “I thought you…I thought you’d know what was happening. You’re. Well. You’re _you_ , aren’t you?”

Harry doesn’t flinch—he’d stopped doing that, at some point; fuck if he remembers when—but he does drink some more whisky. “I’m me,” he says, blankly. “Right. What does—how did you know. Y’know. To come here. How’d you know to do that?”

“There was a note,” she replies, evenly. Too evenly. “On my pillow. With your name on it.”

“And you just—believed it?”

She reaches into her handbag again. He’s genuinely worried he might vomit. “No, of course not. There’s. There’s more.”

“You said that already.”

“Pardon?”

“ _There’s more_ ,” he mimics, stomach twisting with dread. _Dread_. Like he really had anything else to fucking lose. To be afraid of. “You said that already.”

“Oh.”

Harry swallows more whisky. “Look, you need—you need to explain what the _fuck_ is going on.” He’s not slurring his words, not yet, but there’s a telltale crippling _burn_ eclipsing his gut from the inside out. “Parkinson. _Please_.”

She studies him for what feels like forever, a moment that stretches as deep as it digs, and he regrets, suddenly, that he can’t quite remember any of Hermione’s asinine muggle platitudes. They’re useless on a good day—infuriating on a bad one—but he thinks he might get the point of them now. Because Parkinson has a light sprinkling of freckles on the bridge of her nose, red-brown and mostly faded. He absently wonders if she used to cover them up. If he’d just never gotten close enough to her to properly _see_.

“I can’t,” Parkinson murmurs, removing that same small satin envelope from her bag. She opens it clumsily, like her fingers have gone numb. Pauses. Licks her lips. Meets his gaze head-on, a slight furrow in her brow. “I can’t explain anything, Potter.”

And then she’s holding out a flat plastic stick with a clear blue cap on one end, an oval cutout in the middle, and—two solidly distinct pink lines.

“What is _that_ ,” Harry croaks, even though—

Even though it’s obvious.

It’s so _fucking_ obvious.

“It’s a pregnancy test,” Parkinson replies, and her words emerge jagged—sour, sweet, suffocating—with irritation. Incredulity. No. Something else. Something worse. “I took it this morning.”

Blood thrums in Harry’s ears. “I don’t—what are you—”

“It’s—the box says it’s positive,” she goes on, a reedy hint of hysteria finally creeping into her voice. “And the note…”

The skin between his shoulder blades prickles. “The note?”

“The note says it’s yours.”

Harry’s grip on the bottle of Glenfiddich goes slack.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> [come join me in hell](http://www.provocative-envy.tumblr.com)   
> 


End file.
